


fallin' all in you

by zoeyclarke



Category: Chicago Med
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fix-It, I Will Go Down With This Ship, One Shot, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, alternate season 4, they're happy here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 10:50:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20947136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zoeyclarke/pseuds/zoeyclarke
Summary: “But today I finally realized that it was an easy choice to make from the start. In fact, there-- there never even was a choice. You are my choice, Ava. You’re my only. I- I can’t imagine going anywhere else without you.”(a loose rewrite of season 4 in which connor and ava are happy and in love and everything's just a lot better.)





	fallin' all in you

**Author's Note:**

> i'm still very in my feelings about how terribly the rhekker ship went down like the titanic. i mean it was a disaster. i needed to imagine a much happier and fluffier season 4/5 for them. and the end result... well let's just say i don't think i've ever written so much fluff before in my life. (also, please keep in mind that my memory of details from last season are a bit fuzzy because i have yet to rewatch most of the episodes! sorry for any mistakes/inconsistencies)
> 
> this is a world in which connor didn't need a hybrid o.r. to stay in chicago, and the thought of contaminating insulin never even crossed ava's mind because it never reached that point. and yes, they may be a bit ooc because there's definitely more fluff than teasing here, oops. thank you for reading and i hope you like it!

_trapped up on a tightrope now we're here, we're free_

_falling all in you_

_\- shawn mendes, "fallin' all in you"_

* * *

Before he said it, the sky was still pitch black. There they were, outside the hospital, standing on the cold sidewalk. He had a layer of something she didn’t like in his eyes, something that dulled the usual amused shine. She was nursing a cup of coffee that she didn’t need; it had to have been her fourth or fifth serving that day. It also happened to be nearly eleven o’clock, and she was heading home to the warm embrace of her bed. But when Connor had stopped her in the hall on her way out and told him they needed to talk, she’d poured one last cup just in case. There was a reason they had coffee brewed and at the ready for doctors at all hours of the day (and night).

“Listen, I, um...” He hesitated then, tilting back on his heels before falling forward again. She drummed her fingers on the thin paper coffee cup, keeping her touch light because if she held on too long, it burned. “It wasn’t an easy decision.”

Connor stopped again, and she suppressed a sigh. Damn, maybe she should’ve grabbed a Red Bull for this. Her eyelids were drooping, and the harsh lights on the building were too bright, and the lampposts were swarming with moths, and she just really wanted to go to bed.

Besides, this was pointless. She already knew what he was going to say. Of course he was going to take the job at Mayo Clinic. Why wouldn’t he? It was the next big move for his extravagant, exemplary career. His big old career that demanded him to cut his ties with her here. His career that she was no longer meant to be a part of.

He shifted his weight again, and still she waited for him. She had to admit, she felt somewhat like they were teetering on the edge of something here. Sure, maybe he would just turn around and move safely away from the cliff’s edge-- or maybe he would decide to take the plunge with her after all.

“Or... or that’s what I thought at first. That it wasn’t an easy decision.” Connor looked up from his feet, trapping her in his baby blues. “But today I finally realized that it was an easy choice to make from the start. In fact, there-- there never even _ was _a choice. You are my choice, Ava. You’re my only. I- I can’t imagine going anywhere else without you.”

Ava liked to call herself a collected and calm person, but all that went out the window as the coffee slipped out of her hands. It hit the sidewalk, plastic lid popping off and hot liquid splashing up, but she jumped a clear arc over it and landed in his arms. She just stood there and hugged him until her heartbeat slowed down again. When she unburied her face from his shoulder, her eyes rolled up to the sky, and she saw stars.

And she wanted to tell him that she loved him, so desperately. Still, though, she bit her tongue. It was kind of difficult to talk at the moment anyway, because suddenly his lips were on hers and they were sharing the same breath between two pairs of shuddering lungs. His career didn’t need a hybrid O.R.; it needed _ her_.

(That night, they went home to the same place and she stayed up later than she’d planned.)

* * *

She had just gotten to sit down after a three-hour surgery when her pager started screaming. Ava slouched in her chair. Everything ached. Her shoulders were sore, her legs were jelly, and her arms felt like stretched-out putty. Her head was fuzzy and for one scary moment, she couldn’t remember what her middle name was.

Heaving a sigh, she pulled out the tittering device and scanned it. The message was from Maggie; Dr. Manning needed help with a burn patient downstairs in the E.D. Ava felt like an invisible force was peeling her off the chair and turning her in the direction of the elevators. Thank god for elevators; stairs were always so difficult when she was at the point of exhaustion where she could cave in on herself.

She hit the down button and waited a minute. She was fully prepared to lean against the wall and close her eyes for thirty seconds of rest on the way down, but what she saw before her changed all that.

As the doors finished rolling apart, there was Connor, looking like he was ready to step off. Upon seeing her, he froze and his face drew tight with concern. “Ava? Are you okay?”

She let out a short huff of a laugh. “I’m just exhausted, is all. Typical day.” She got on and he wavered, still gazing at her. “Should I ask if you’re alright? You seem to be in a trance.” Ava waved her hand in his face, and he blinked hard.

“No, no, I’m just... you look really beat. And really hot.” She rolled her eyes. He glanced at his watch, then back at her. “What are you on your way down for?”

“Burn case in the E.D., Natalie needs my consult.” Just then, the elevator dinged impatiently at them, and in a split second decision Connor moved back inside. Ava just stared at him. “Weren’t you getting off here?”

Connor leaned against the wall next to her. He was close enough for her to feel his breath hot on her cheek. “Well, I actually have five minutes.” Without even looking, he used one foot to hit the button for the ground floor. The doors slid shut. “I have five minutes, and this elevator takes approximately twenty seconds to get from here to the E.D.” He brushed his nose with hers. “Want to make use of our time?”

Ava chose not to answer; as the elevator jerked and began its descent, she collided her mouth with his, running her hands through his hair while he cupped her face. He tasted sweet, and as if she’d guzzled a soda, a sugar rush roared through her blood. Each second connected to him was a second more to recharge her battery.

The elevator had never moved so fast. Too soon, it grinded to a halt and dinged, signaling the end of their moment alone. Just before the doors opened, they disconnected from each other’s power source, but lingered just a few beats more with their foreheads touching, eyes closed.

“You...” Connor whispered, planting a swift kiss on her lips between each word, “... are... amazing.” He smoothed down her hair and offered her a crooked smile. “Go do great things. I’ll see you later.”

She was still catching her breath. “Hopefully next time we see each other, we’re both still awake.”

“You have my key, right?”

She nodded. “I’ll leave it under the rug for you.”

Then the doors were open, and they were exposed to the bustling E.D. Sirens wailed in the distance as a stretcher was rolled through the front doors, the paramedic pushing it shouting information at the doctor jogging alongside them. Ava exhaled. A perfect scene set. She squeezed Connor’s hand and exited the elevator, hoping she didn’t look too flushed.

She walked up to the nurses’ desk and searched the chaotic scene around her for Natalie or Maggie. Then she saw April pop up out of seemingly nowhere on the other side of the counter. She had a knowing smirk on her face that made Ava uneasy.

“You look a little sweaty, Ava. You feeling alright?”

Great, the blush must have still been draining from her face. Ava stiffened and scrunched her brow, keeping up a mask of innocence. “Yeah, I’m fine, I just... ran down the stairs to get here.”

April nodded and hummed, glancing at her computer screen. “Oh, okay. It was weird, though, why did Connor ride the elevator all the way down here just to go back up?”

“He was just checking to make sure I was--” Ava stopped short, realizing she’d been backed into a corner. April raised her eyebrows at her, and the doctor sighed. “April, can you just tell me where Natalie’s--”

“Treatment four.”

“Thank you,” Ava said pointedly, turning on her heel.

(Her shift ended hours before his, and he still needed to make a copy of his apartment key for her. When he got home, she was fast asleep, splayed out in his bed in a silk pajama top and looking devastatingly beautiful as always. He brushed a few strands of golden-brown hair off her cheek and left a kiss there. When she roused at four-thirty the next morning, he was dead to the world but she laid there and stroked his rising and falling chest for a few minutes just because.)

* * *

Some days they got to work closer than others, of course. Today was a good day, he thought, because for once they woke up together, at the same time. Wednesdays were the best days since they tended to be on a similar schedule. It was only once a week, though. By the time the end of a Wednesday shift wrapped back around to the beginning of the next, spending more than fifteen minutes together had started to feel like a bizarre concept again.

But, now, here they were. Another week had gone by, and Connor had woken up just ten minutes before the alarm. There were ten free, uninterrupted minutes where he could just stay under the covers and admire her. (In fact, he could watch her do absolutely nothing and be happy forever. Though witnessing her save lives was pretty cool too.)

He let out a breath, and his cheek rubbed on the cottony pillowcase as he yawned. The room was serene, a protected plush world with only him and her in it. It was so damn early, it was still dark outside. But he liked to imagine what it would feel like to have strips of dawn light peeking through the blinds, warming the covers, and what it would look like to have one gold bar of sun fall over her face and her eyes. It drove him wild the way her eye color turned to molten bronze in the sun.

But it was still before dawn, and with a start he realized she was awake, albeit barely, and staring back at him. Inside his chest rumbled with laughter. “Morning, sleepyhead,” he murmured. “Or should I say, pre-morning.”

Ava’s eyes were at a drowsy half-mast. She made a whiny noise that oozed reluctance. When he tried to swipe some flyaway hairs off her forehead, she playfully swatted his hand away and shoved his bare chest. Then she mumbled something he didn’t quite get.

“What’d you say?” he asked. “I already knew doctors’ handwriting was bad, but I didn’t think their speech was unintelligible too.”

“You’re one to talk,” she growled. Her accent was always thicker before she was fully awake. “I said to go get the coffee ready. I’ll be up in a minute.”

Connor pecked her nose, then forced himself to shed his many layers of blankets and warmth. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, curled his toes into the carpet, and disabled the now unneeded alarm. He trusted her to get up in exactly a minute, just as she had promised. She hadn’t ever been wrong about it yet.

The clock on the stove read 4:57 in bright green digital numbers. If they wanted to get there on time, they’d have to leave by quarter to six at the absolute latest, but that would be pushing it. Chicago traffic was always the worst on Wednesdays for some reason; at least today they would get to drive in together, as per their usual Wednesday routine. Each week they took turns driving. Today it was his turn, and he was looking forward to it. There was something really compelling about seeing his sexy girlfriend in the passenger seat of his Porsche. She just looked like she belonged there among all the expensive leather upholstery. And he knew she had to be the one when he didn’t get angry at her for accidentally spilling coffee in his car. (After all, they had left much more incriminating stains in the narrow backseat on many an occasion.)

The Keurig started spitting out the first of several cups of coffee. He called out a gentle “Avey!” knowing that if the scent of java didn’t lure her into the kitchen, the pet name would.

Within a lightning fast twenty-five minutes, they had consumed a collective five cups of coffee and were dressed. Connor used to be a morning showerer, but Ava preferred showering at night and she’d gotten him on that bandwagon. It was kind of nice washing a long day away. Besides, now they got out the door faster in the morning.

She had her white coat slung over her shoulder, and he had left his in his locker at Gaffney the night before. They looked at each other, and stayed just a few seconds more at the kitchen counter while Ava downed her final sips. Then they were out for the day.

The day was going great. They were walking down the busy corridor together, fingertips grazing; then the next instant they were careening around the corner toward the beeping monitors of a coding patient. They were running and she was a blur but he could still catch the hair bouncing on her shoulders, the way her tongue poked out between pursed lips as she concentrated, the strain in her voice as she yelled “clear.” They caught their breaths and helped someone else find their breath again.

The day was going great until it wasn’t. It was after four o’clock and they were discussing the course of treatment for a 54-year-old with a severe bradycardia. They had a classic disagreement, but were trying to remedy it with quiet words when the telltale incessant _ eep, eep, eep _of a pager devoured what Connor had been about to say. His head snapped up and Ava set down her cup of water with a sigh. It was her pager. She unclipped it and read the message and from the expression on her face, Connor knew it was about the very 54-year-old they were talking about.

“Emergency catheter ablation,” she half told him, half muttered to herself. She met his gaze and shrugged. “Guess his pacemaker gave out. I think you’re right, I should’ve done another echocardiogram just to make sure he was stable. Shit.” 

Connor rubbed her shoulder blade affectionately. “Hey, he’s your patient, so you know him best. You already did every other possible test more than once.”

She accepted his fleeting hug, and dropped a hurried kiss on his lips. “I’ll see you when I get out, okay?” Then she was gone, having passed through his arms like a breeze.

He stared after her. “Whenever that is.”

* * *

By the time she emerged from the O.R., Ava wasn’t sure what year it was. She stood in the outer room between bloody hell and the outside world, peeling off her scarlet gloves and splattered surgical scrubs. It had been a difficult surgery to say the least. They lost Samuel twice, though the second time hadn’t been as catastrophic as the first. Still, somehow, he’d managed to pull through with minimal damage done (and she’d managed to close him up without collapsing onto his unconscious body). She was positively drained, and had to check to make sure she still had a pulse too.

She was washing up at the sink when she heard a light tapping coming from her left. Her eyes flicked up from the running water and landed on a familiar face on the other side of the glass pane in the door. Connor grinned at her, face framed in the rectangular window before it was replaced by a McDonald’s bag. Oh, wow. He really knew how to draw a smile out of her from even the darkest spaces.

Ava finished cleaning up and burst through the door. She let herself be completely enveloped by him in the empty hallway. The deliciously unmistakable scent of fried food invaded her nostrils and she groaned happily into his shoulder, her familiar resting place.

“You are incredible,” she told him, leaning back and giving him the deep kiss she knew he was waiting for.

“Well, it was pretty pricey, but... I made do,” Connor said. He was eyeing the McDonald’s bag like it was a bomb waiting to be planted in their arteries (it probably was).

After she changed out of her scrubs, he led her upstairs and outside to a quiet corner of the rooftop. It looked like an elevated courtyard, with some ivy snaking around the wall, a flimsy metal table and two chairs, and lanterns of various shapes and sizes placed at random on the ground.

“Connor,” she said softly, and he looked at her. “You really outdid yourself.” It came out with a flavor of sarcasm that she didn’t really intend; she actually meant it. She just wished she was awake enough to truly appreciate his adorable effort.

There was a bottle of wine waiting for them on the table, cork already twisted off. She could almost laugh at the absurdity of pairing a McChicken with a top-quality sauvignon blanc, but then she remembered who she was doing this ridiculous shit with-- and she wouldn’t have it any other way.

They sat down and he opened the bag, paper crackling as he pulled out her sandwich of choice, then his, then a small serving of fries to share (his inner doctor must’ve spoken to him there). She unwrapped her chicken sandwich and sank her teeth into it. It was still warm and salty and positively divine.

There were no glasses for the wine, so they passed the bottle back and forth. They were mostly quiet, instead listening to the city noise far below. After several sips of wine, her stomach felt fuzzy and warm. Between passes, she caught the label: _ Stellenbosch, 2014. _She thought she had visited there once, when she was little.

Shit, this was really top-quality, good wine. With McDonald’s.

“So,” he said at one point, “is this any better than that fancy place you like?”

Ava snorted. “What fancy place?”

When they were done and the last fry had been eaten Lady and Tramp style (she really had to be tipsy if she was doing crap like that), Connor produced a tiny gift box and set it in front of her. She looked from it to him through narrowed, hazy eyes.

“Open it,” he urged, as if she needed directions.

Inside was a key, a very familiar looking key. Her gaze darted up to him again, and a rigid smile peeked out from a well-trimmed beard. “Move in with me?” he asked. He held up his own keyring, showing off the apartment key she’d borrowed time and time again, and at last it clicked that he had made her her own copy. It was about time! For the past few months, she’d been paying rent for a place she came home to maybe twice a week. It was only logical for her to live with him full time.

Ava nodded rapidly like the drunk bobblehead she was. “Of course I will. You’re one smart idiot, getting me wasted before asking that.”

He frowned. “I feel like ‘smart’ and ‘idiot’ don’t really go together.”

“Well, they do in your case.” She picked up the key and closed it in her palm. It was cool and frosty like an ice cube.

“What a Wednesday, huh?”

“Yeah, what a Wednesday.”

* * *

It was kind of strange not having an issue of their own, though Connor certainly wasn’t asking for one. Considering the other known couples in their circle of friends, he and Ava were currently the most unbothered: April and Ethan were up in arms over his sister, and Natalie and Will’s attempt at getting married had just ended in utter disaster.

They sat in her car after the ill-fated wedding, him in a rumpled suit and her gown clinging to her tiredly.

“That was... something,” he said.

“It was awful,” she replied, a troubled frown creasing her features.

They sat there and watched city lights flicker through the smeary windshield. The image of Natalie sobbing in her white dress wouldn’t stop haunting him.

“Would you... ever want to get married?” Connor hoped he had only thought the question, but he knew he had indeed spoken aloud when Ava bolted upright in her seat.

Her head snapped in his direction, jaw dropping as she scrambled for an answer. “W- well, I mean... I’m not... not particularly inclined to after what happened tonight.”

Connor combed his fingers through his hair. “Yeah, I don’t blame you. But what about... like, farther down the line?”

Ava hugged her chest and picked at a button on the steering wheel. “You can marry me when we’re ninety, Connor.”

He gazed at her and kept grinning until she reciprocated. Her makeup, applied heavier than usual for the occasion, was starting to wear, and unfiltered emotion glittered under heavy eyelids. “Sounds like a good thing to live up to,” he said.

* * *

His bathroom was spacious and laid out in tones of off-white and pale gray. The slate tile was cool on her feet as she faced him and rubbed her chin in thought. “You really want to do this?” Ava questioned.

Connor chuckled. “It was your idea in the first place,” he pointed out. “And I’m not partial either way.”

She groaned. “Of course you’re not. You always have to make decisions more difficult.” He opened his mouth, and she lifted a hand to silence him. “Yes, I know, you could say the same about me. Shut up.”

The day had been stressful; they’d collaborated on a risky surgery on a HIV-positive patient with broken ribs. And there was a moment where she almost lost her grip dangerously close to Connor’s tainted scalpel, but he warned her and she’d frozen a millimeter from the blade. If that thing had torn her glove and the skin underneath, she wasn’t sure what she would’ve done. Maybe dive head first into a vat of lye, for starters.

But it went off without a hitch.

She looked at him, explored his eyes like stormy skies, and knew this was the man she breathed for. (He held her heart in his hands.) Ava reached up and cupped the side of his face, rubbing the pad of her thumb in his bristly beard. Then she stood on her toes and pecked him, making sure to catch the musky scent of his beard oil one last time. 

“Okay, let’s do it,” she said.

“Okay.”

Ava propped herself up on the corner of the vanity and picked up the trimmer. They would start with that to remove the thicker hairs first, then switch to a razor and shaving cream. She flicked the little device on, and as it buzzed she hummed softly. She held onto his shoulder to keep him steady, aiming the trimmer along his chiseled steel jawbone.

While she worked, he played with the tail of her braid, and she had to resist slapping him away. “Let’s do you next,” he suggested.

“Either you’re saying we should shave me bald, or you’re implying that I also have hair on my face. So either way, fuck you.”

“Actually, I was thinking of another way to do you. The last thing you said is more along those lines,” Connor replied, meeting her eyes boldly. She bit her lip and said nothing, heart slamming.

She set down the trimmer, trying to focus on her task at hand. She peered down at the spread-out towel he was standing on; it was covered with the remains of a now-patchy beard. “Alright,” she mumbled to herself, taking the shaving cream and swinging her legs. She liked sitting a little above him. She squirted the cream into her palm and began to rub it onto his lower face. “Uh-oh,” she mused, feigning concern suddenly. “Looks like you have a bald spot forming up there.” She dabbed a clump of shaving cream onto his head, and he gasped in exasperation.

“Damn it, Ava!” he exclaimed, but the amusement hiding behind his words was poorly concealed. In retaliation, he jerked up and smeared some shaving cream on her nose.

It took nearly fifteen minutes, but eventually she was finished and had a fresh-faced, clean-shaven Connor standing in front of her. “Wow,” she whispered, hopping off the counter as he took the towel away from his face.

“How do I look?” he asked.

“Good. Really good.” She smiled. “You look like the Connor I met.”

He lifted an eyebrow at her. “But I’m still the same Connor on the inside, right?”

“In some ways, yes,” she answered truthfully. They stood together before the mirror, marveling at his altered appearance. “Was that Connor in love with me?”

Connor blinked at her, making eye contact through the mirror, and she knew his answer. “And every second he wasn’t, he was a fool,” he told her.

(When he mentioned a minute later that he really should get that shaving cream out of his hair, and that she really should get that shaving cream off her nose, she didn’t hesitate joining him in the shower.)

* * *

The day a car drove into the front of the hospital, Connor woke up late. He was lying on his stomach, face half-buried in the pillow, and something didn’t seem right. The room was too bright; he was too comfortable, too warm. He popped open one eye and picked up his phone from the nightstand.

It was 5:29. A few seconds later, the alarm went off and he quickly swiped to shut it up.

“What the hell,” he muttered to himself. His head was still bleary, and it was made worse as confusion set in. He _ knew _there was no way he’d set his alarm for 5:30 last night. He should’ve been up nearly an hour ago. Did his finger somehow slip and select the wrong time? It didn’t make any sense. 

He couldn’t recall the last time he had been allowed to sleep in this late. The sun was already working its way up the sky, and he felt _ too _refreshed. This was wrong, so wrong. He was supposed to feel exhausted, like he had only an hour to lay his head on the pillow before getting up again. That was how it usually was when he headed into work, and he always managed to push through.

And now here he was, feeling much better and very panicked at the same time. He had to be at Gaffney by six. The only way that was going to happen was if teleportation became possible in the next ten minutes.

The early morning sun filtered into the apartment in shades of gold and white. The sun pooled neatly on Ava’s made-up side of the bed, maintaining her warmth and light in her absence. But he barely had the time to stop and admire it.

Fuming, he yanked on scrub pants and a plain black undershirt then breezed out of the bedroom. Connor had zero time for hot coffee, but he knew he needed something in his stomach to be able to function, so he checked the contents of the fridge. As soon as it opened, he found a to-go mug with a sticky note attached to it:

_ Connor, I thought you needed some extra sleep. Don’t worry, you still have your morning coffee. This mug has iced coffee in it! _

Without thinking, Connor snatched up the mug and took several swigs of that amazing energy juice. Then he stopped, knitting his brows together, and scanned over the note again in her feather-light penmanship. “_ I thought you needed some extra sleep. _” Wait... did Ava set his alarm to a later time? Of course she knew the passcode to his phone - she was the only other person in the world who did.

His grip on the mug tightened, and if it were a twig, it would’ve snapped. Connor spun around and slammed the fridge door. He gathered his things and slung his bag over his shoulder. But when he went to pluck his car keys from the bowl by the front door, he found another note next to them in the bowl. He wanted to ignore it, but it was begging to be read, so he did:

_ And you really should eat. _

The post-it note was wrapped around a chocolate chip granola bar; a basic flavor, but his favorite kind. Where had she even gotten her hands on one? They didn’t have any in the pantry as far as he knew.

He tore the note off with a disgruntled sigh, and he was so quick to toss it away, he nearly missed something else written on the back of it:

_ Love you. _

Connor didn’t think much of it; it was a known fact they loved each other, after all. He decided to fold the note more nicely rather than just crumple it. Then he took his things and headed out the door.

Somehow he made it to the hospital only eleven minutes late. He came in through the door like a hurricane, zooming past everyone and everything with unkempt hair and thunderous steps. He burst into the lounge and dropped his bag heavily on the table, digging through it to find his scrub shirt. God damn it, he better not have forgotten it.

The door opened and he spared the person half a glance. Upon seeing who it was, he bit his tongue and continued rifling through his things.

“Connor,” her voice cut through the bitter silence, “Come on. Please don’t tell me you’re angry.”

Slowly he lifted his head and blinked at her, frowning. “Does the look on my face tell you enough?”

Ava walked over to him, her movement as feather-light as her handwriting. “I was... worried you would be. But listen, you looked so exhausted last night... I was still awake when you got home. I was just concerned for your health, Connor. You deserved a little more rest.”

He didn't answer right away.

"Do you not feel well-rested?" she demanded. "Not even a little bit?"

“Even if I do,” he said, “that shouldn't mean sacrificing all responsibility for forty-five extra minutes of sleep.”

“I told them you would be a little late. I covered for you. Nobody is upset that you’re behind. Your first surgery isn’t scheduled until--”

“Nine-thirty. I know.” Connor rubbed his cheek, grimacing at the scrape of his unshaven face. “Just... Ava, I need to get ready, okay? I just sped through twenty blocks of congested traffic to get here and any patience I woke up with is beyond spent.”

He didn’t look up, but he could feel her lingering, leaning herself on the back of a chair. At last, _ finally_, he found his shirt and started to pull it on. While his face was hidden, she said, “Did you read the notes?”

“Yes,” he grunted.

“... all of them?”

“Yes.” He smoothed out the shirt and then his hair before going to shove his bag in his locker. “What about it?”

Silence followed. A small spark of concern bit at his heart, and he twisted around to make sure she was still standing. She was, but her gaze was cast downward. Something he couldn’t place was radiating off her in waves, and she shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Suddenly she looked so small, her white jacket swallowing her whole. This wasn’t right either. She was a dominant force who filled every inch of her white jacket.

“Ava?” He shut the locker door with a _ clang _ then approached her. “Ava, what is it?”

She looked up at him, hazel eyes darker than usual. “I said it, Connor. I...” She trailed off, feverishly swiping a bundle of hair behind her ear and turning away. “I guess it was silly, I don’t know.”

Connor was still as a statue, but inside the gears were turning like crazy in his head. She thought he needed some extra sleep... she thought he really should eat... she thought...

Oh. Wait.

“Love you,” he said, the words oddly sweet on his tongue. He had spoken those words before, but it was different this time. And he liked the way they sounded when he said them in front of her. When he said them _ to _ her.

He reached for her hand, and she let him enclose her fingers in his. “Hey,” he said softly. “Avey.” He waited for her to make eye contact again, then smiled. “I guess... it didn’t hit me, really, because I’ve known for a while how much I love you, and that you love me too. It was a known fact between us, but... never a spoken fact.”

She gazed steadily at him. “Until now.”

“Until now.” He leaned in and captured her lips, stroking the back of her head and weaving his fingers in her hair. When they broke apart, there was a gentle sigh and he wasn’t sure who it came from. “I love you too, you know.”

Ava simply grinned at him, her eyes already light enough for him to see the rarely-spotted flecks of green. They stayed like that for a moment more, then she seemed to shake something into herself. Her face became less serene and more rigid, the way she tended to be at work. “Your stubble feels like a bunch of microscopic needles,” she hummed, tracing her index finger along his jawbone.

“I didn’t exactly have time to shave,” he pointed out.

“Yeah... I know,” she said sheepishly. “I’m still getting used to kissing you without the beard.”

Connor was about to reply when there was a sudden boom. Or was it more like a crash? Either way, it was alarming and it completely shattered their calm togetherness.

They were told later that they would have to do emergency surgery on the imbecile behind the wheel of the car currently embedded in the entrance of the E.D. The car with April pinned beneath it as she tried to help another victim. 

As much as Connor wasn’t keen on the idea of working tirelessly to save a patient like that, he knew he had to put his personal feelings aside to get the best job done. And, of course, he could do that more easily with her by his side. He also got to take solace in the fact that there he was, working alongside Ava in the O.R., and it wasn’t even a Wednesday.

Miracles did arrive in disguise, he figured. And others came in the form of scribbled words on a sticky-note wrapped around a granola bar.

* * *

On Fridays, Connor got up earlier than Ava. Faithful as always, the alarm went off and he slid out of bed and sleepwalked into a suitable outfit. 

The rent agreement on Ava’s old place had officially ended a few days ago, and the place was no longer in her hands. Not that they really noticed; she had already been living with him for months, all things considered. And he loved seeing her possessions intermingled with his things. He loved doing her laundry and folding her clothes neatly on not _ his _ bed, but _ their _ bed. He loved cooking with her on the weekends, bumping and brushing each other in the kitchen, in perfect harmony. He loved seeing the smaller hints of her around his home, from her preferred shampoo in the shower to her car keys in the bowl by the front door. When he had bought the place, it had come with two premium parking spots, and now, for the first time, there was someone else who had a car to fill that extra space. She made his home feel more like _ home_, and it made his insides all fuzzy like a heated blanket. This place was meant for more than one person.

The bedroom was filled with her soft breathing, music to his ears. Ava was actually more of a snorer than Connor was, though neither of them were particularly loud. She claimed he mumbled in his sleep sometimes, which didn’t surprise him. He was the kind of doctor who drifted off thinking of treatment solutions for his patients, and he doubted that thought process ever stopped deep in his subconscious.

Connor envied that she would be getting an entire hour more of sleep than him. The vast majority of the day shifts at Gaffney started and ended around the same time, and their friends were lucky to get assigned that. It just so happened he and Ava were on schedules that differed ever so slightly yet overlapped just enough to remind him that yes, indeed, he and his girlfriend worked at the same place. It was easy to forget that sometimes when they only saw each other in the earliest hours of the morning and the latest hours of the night.

It was peaceful this morning, so peaceful and nice. Connor poured his coffee straight into a to-go mug, deciding to get a head start on traffic. He thought about how great the day ahead would be as he walked out the door on the day his father was diagnosed with heart failure.

* * *

Ava had a sinking feeling in her stomach the moment she stepped inside the hospital. Connor’s call had been hushed and anxious. He’d caught his father arguing with someone (not shocking news itself) when he walked into Gaffney that morning. A few minutes later, Cornelius had all but collapsed into Connor’s arms due to twinges in his chest. 

Connor had reassured her that Cornelius was stable for now, and that he’d been lucky it was caught before his chest pains elevated to a heart attack. Still, when he spoke it sounded like he was trying to soothe himself too, and that did little to assuage her. There were still all types of things that could go wrong. 

Ava knew Connor’s relationship with his dad was a delicate kind of troubled, but she had never interacted much with the man herself and therefore couldn’t bring herself to despise him. Besides, her boyfriend was making an effort to mend things - with his mom long gone and sister moved away, the men were all each other had left. Ava just found it odd that someone could be disappointed in their child for becoming a doctor, of all things. It was a relief Connor hadn’t followed the scandalous footsteps his rich family had laid out before him.

Of course, Connor couldn’t be his father’s heart surgeon because of the familial (and semi-emotional) connection. The very next thing out of his mouth when he called her was a request for Ava to be his dad’s surgeon. “You’re the only one I trust without a shred of doubt,” he said. And she didn’t hesitate in accepting. Few other doctors seemed to want to deal with the older man anyway because of his arrogance and high “esteem” in the hospital’s administrative hierarchy. It was a lot of pressure, but she was up for wielding that weight.

She didn’t even have the time to become nervous about it (her nerves were never very overactive anyway). She came into work and within twenty minutes was washed up, scrubbed up, and in the O.R. over the sedated body of someone who was very dear to Connor Rhodes, though he might never admit it. Ava knew what to do, and she did it at the height of her ability. Whenever she opened up a chest and saw a patient’s heart naked to the open air, she tried not to judge the appearance of it outside of professional reasons. But when she saw the aged, overwhelmed heart of Cornelius Rhodes exposed at her fingertips, she realized she finally knew what the blackest of hearts really looked like: no different from any other heart. The organ was fixable, she thought, in more ways than one; so fix it she did.

When the surgery was complete and Cornelius awoke a few hours later, Connor was at his bedside. He paged Ava and she was up in his premium room within ten minutes. She knocked gently then stepped in while Cornelius was in the middle of a bitter complaint about the hospital food. He trailed off when she appeared, however, interest lightening his grizzled appearance.

“Who’s this? Your girlfriend?” he asked, gesturing vaguely at her. 

Connor already looked fed up. “Well, yes,” he said firmly, sharing a knowing glance with her, “but she’s also the surgeon who just saved your life.”

Before giving Cornelius a chance to grumble something else, Ava launched into her spiel explaining what she did to repair the damage (only the physical damage, of course; the emotional damage was between father and son). Shockingly, Cornelius thanked her, apparently rendered stupefied, and she excused herself.

Within a second, Connor had slipped out the door after her. In the relative privacy of the quiet upper floor hallway, he embraced her and held her in the most tender kiss. “Thank you,” he murmured into her hair.

“Of course,” she said.

“You know I would’ve done the same for you,” he added, pulling back and looking seriously at her. “In an instant.”

Ava knew why he used past tense; she knew they were both thinking of the father she had lost at sixteen years old to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. It was funny; she had already been on track to grow up to be a cardiothoracic surgeon before his death, but emotion fed ambition.

* * *

When the faulty part she had unknowingly implanted decided to act up and threaten Cornelius’s life again, Ava drove there at two in the morning and was in the O.R. by twenty after to fix it. No other surgeon was going to touch her patient.

Connor didn’t waver from her for one moment, and when she disposed of her bloody gloves and emerged back into the outside world, he was there to catch her and they both cried a little.

* * *

Cornelius woke up again. He took one look at his son, listened to the story of yet another near-death experience, and was told who had brought him back a second time. He looked at Connor and asked him why he had given up on getting funding for his hybrid O.R. nearly a year ago.

Connor was taken aback. He scraped his chair back from his father’s bed and instinctively began to pace around the luxuriously spacious room that reminded him every few seconds of the Rhodes fortune.

“How did you know?” he eventually asked.

“I think Goodwin or someone mentioned it in a meeting I sat in on a few months back. And I already know you rejected the position at Mayo Clinic to stay here, which was a stupid career move to begin with. I don’t understand why you would stay in Chicago when it does nothing to boost your career.”

Connor froze at the foot of the bed. He crossed his arms and stared evenly at this insufferable person who shared his blood. “Staying here boosts my happiness, and that’s what’s important. I have my reasons.” (There was only one reason, actually, and she was remarkable and beautiful and everything he needed.) He paused. “Of course... of course the hybrid O.R. was important to me, and it would have helped countless patients, but the cost was just too high for the administration to even consider at that point. As I’m sure you’re aware. Besides, it’s not about what I want, it’s about what’s best for the patients. If sometime in the future the hybrid O.R. _ could _exist, that would be amazing and I think it would be in everyone’s best interest.”

Cornelius nodded thoughtfully. He actually seemed to be soaking in every word. “Yes, I see. Dr. Bekker seems to feel quite the same way.”

Connor blinked dumbly at him. “What?”

“Though she did emphasize that putting in a hybrid O.R. would please you beyond my comprehension.” Cornelius smirked. “So perhaps if it’s something I cannot understand right now, it is something I would like to understand in the future. I looked into it and I think a hybrid O.R. could do wonders for the hospital’s profit, which should convince any reluctant parties. I’ve been able to rope in a few colleagues who would like to join me in funding the installation.”

Connor could have fainted right on the spot.

* * *

Lightning sliced through the sky overhead as Connor’s Porsche pulled into the parking garage, rain sliding off the car’s smooth flanks. He backed into his spot next to Ava’s car then made his way upstairs, jogging through just a half-block of rain before reaching his apartment building.

It was a relaxed Saturday evening, and as soon as he came inside their home Connor shrugged off all the day’s worries and left them at the door. The kitchen was dark, an open bottle of wine on the counter. Connor grabbed it by the neck and squinted to read the label when her voice called out, “I already poured you a glass! Come here.”

The light coming from the living room was mellow and golden like her hair. Ava was curled on the sofa watching a rerun of _ Grey’s Anatomy_. A bowl of popcorn and his promised glass of wine were on the coffee table. She took a sip from her glass in her hand, eyes following him as he came over and sat down beside her. She looked stunning in an old sweatshirt that drooped off one shoulder, exposing skin that was flawless save for a faded hickey on the side of her neck.

“The medical inaccuracies on this show are astounding,” she said. “They’re more focused on the drama in their own lives than on being doctors.”

“Imagine that: a TV show about fake doctors being medically inaccurate,” Connor teased as he reached for a handful of popcorn. 

She also reached for popcorn, but instead of eating it she threw a few pieces at his face.

A few commercials droned along on the TV, and they moved closer together, her leaning on his arm and his cheek resting on her head. This arrangement only lasted for a couple minutes before they gave in to the tension in the air. She slid down onto her back and he straddled her while they made out, his lips tracing her jawline.

“Mmm,” she moaned into his mouth, “I love you, Connor Rhodes.”

Connor opened his eyes for just a second, just to remind himself of who was below him kissing him into delirium. A little over a year ago, he never would have imagined his life would now be shared with the brilliant, sharp-tongued colleague he always clashed the most with. There was some truth in the cliche phrase “opposites attract,” and he and Ava were a prime example of how opposites could most certainly be magnetic. Connor already had glimpses of what they could grow to be together. He could imagine a ring on her finger, moving into a big house, having a family (and not necessarily in that order). He could imagine it all with her, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I love you, Ava Bekker,” he told her. He had never meant anything more. She kissed him again, he breathed in her sweet scent, and he knew he was where he needed to be.


End file.
